Makeover of Norwich subway has a serious message

Artists responsible for the " St Stephens Paste Up" at one of the entrances to the busy subway that they are sprucing up with their work. Left to right Rosemary King, Laura Wigby,Nikki Simmons, Joel Black and Anastacia TohillPhoto: Steve Adams

A Norwich underpass has been given a makeover in the name of mental health.

On a route used by hundreds of people every day on their way to and from work, artists, photographers and graphic designers are coming together to paste art work on the walls.

Community Service Volunteers along with Times for Change are using the space to concentrate on stimulating conversation surrounding all aspects of mental health.

Laura Wigby, 30, of Norwich, who is spearheading the project, said: “I always walk this way to work and I’ve noticed over the last couple of years it has become covered in more and more graffiti. I got in touch with the city council and asked them what the possibility of doing something down here was.”

Artists responsible for the " St Stephens Paste Up" at one of the entrances to the busy subway that they are sprucing up with their work . Anastacia Tohill next to her work.Photo: Steve Adams

Last year, the Norwich Evening News launched its Graffitibusters Campaign aiming to crack down on the illegal tags littering the city centre.

Ms Wigby said its important to challenge taboos surrounding mental health and said: “The space is big and we would like to fill the underpass with strong and relevant artwork that will get people thinking and talking about the subject.”

Joe Black, 29, of Lithuania, a photographer and artist involved in the project, said: “I think its a great idea, all these empty spaces can be filled with art, so it’s something nice to walk through in the morning.”

Nicola Simmons, 21, of Norwich, a graphic designer, wanted to draw attention to the different sides of mental health and said: “I have dyslexia which is a mental health issue. People often mistake dyslexia for a lack of intelligence which I wanted to challenge by presenting the positive side of dyslexia.”

Anastacia Tohill, 46, of Norwich, a freelance illustrator and animator, created a character portraying the ‘five ways to wellbeing.’ She said: “It is important to create art that will make people take notice.”

For more information or to get involved contact Laura Wigby 07881 910 461 or email laura.wigby@bbc.co.uk

Another really important taboo that every mp dodges, is how many Balkan peeps are heading to Blighty....3 million plus ?? many of these poor folk will have mental problems just like Deyan Deyanov, we all know how that ended.

While I like to see people being encouraged to do this sort of work to put their art on public display, it should be noted that the council does very little, if actually anything at all, to encourage artists to freely display their art in Norwich, when in reality it would be so simple. The next stage I suppose will be to give up some sewage space for them.

Good for them. I think, however, EDP could have gone further to explain exactly the taboos being tackled. Do these include for example the 500 job cuts in mental health care locally due to the Government's "austerity" programme, the unfair removal of benefits from many seriously ill people by the DWP following an inaccurate ATOS assessment as part of the Government's "austerity" programme, the impending removal of millions more from DLA when they are reassessed for PIP as the Government manipulates the system in an attempt to further shrink the welfare bill as part of its "austerity" programme, etc.